Lake. Where was my Lake? I hated that she was seeing this. What was I going to do? I couldn’t hold her and tell her everything would be fine. Would it? Would I ever hold her again?
Then it set in—fear. I was so fucking scared.
Was I paralyzed? Would I ever walk again? Why was it so damn hard to breathe?
Lake … she knew …
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
DEFINING LUCK
LAKE
Having been hunchedover in his chair, with his head in his hands, Luke finally looked up at me. Had I not beencompletelynumb, I think the pain in his expression would have cut deep into my heart.
Did I still have a beating heart? I couldn’t feel it.
“I should have…” He shook his head.
Jessica rested her hand on his knee. Aside from Cage, the three of us were the only other ones who knew about my premonition. I wanted to tell his mom that it was my fault. I should have done more to stop him. Before the game I had talked myself into believing whatever happened was nothing more than free will…life.
Watching his limp body being taken off the field on a gurney changed everything. Guilt. That’s all I had. In a matter of seconds it sucked me in and swallowed me whole.
Hours later they finished their tests and moved him to ICU.
“Come on, Lake.” Brooke held out her hand when the nurse gave family permission to see him for the first time.
I stared blankly at her hand. Aside from my eyes shifting from one inanimate object to another over the previous fewhours, I don’t think I actually moved from my deflated position in the chair. If complete shock had a look, it had to have been me. Even as the waiting room overflowed its capacity with players who came to see him straight from the game, I didn’t move. I couldn’t.
“Sweetie, you can go see him now.” My mom touched my arm.
My eyes shifted to her hand; it was something else to focus on until my eyes glazed over again, taking everything out of focus and back into the empty space of my mind where nothing made sense.
Jessica hunched down in front of me, taking my face in her hands with a firm hold. “This is it. This is where you sink or swim. This is where the survivors are separated from the victims.” She grabbed my leg, my prosthetic leg. “You’re a survivor. Get up.”
I’m sure people around us thought she was being insensitive. I knew otherwise. She loved me too much to watch me ever be a victim. There was a reason I’d idolized her for so long.
She stood and held out her hand. “Up.”
An eerie silence claimed the entire waiting room. The numbness began to wear off, and the first thing I felt was a roomful of eyes on me. My naked body circulated around the world in a magazine with a massive readership. I bared everything to everyone without fear, yet I was so fucking scared to take the thirty steps that separated me from Cage.
I stood.
Jess squeezed my hands. “Strength acknowledges weakness. It has a healthy respect for it, but it never submits to it. Got it?”
“Got it,” I whispered. Turning, I followed Brooke to theICU.
The look.
I refused to havethatlook. It was the look my mom and dad had when I came out of my coma. The we’re-so-happy-you’re-alive look followed with a chaser of your-body-is-so-messed-up look.
Brooke? She had it the second we walked into the room. I channeled all the damn strength I could from some unknown place and plastered it on my face to not have any reaction. It wasn’t easy, given the gazillion wires and machines hooked up to his body, his neck in a massive brace.
“Hey.” His voice was soft, a little labored, as his eyes shifted to Brooke.
“Hey.” She rested her hand on his. It didn’t flinch. “How are you feeling?”
“Not feeling much… of anything.”
